Always Unpredictable
by passion4writing14
Summary: Valerie Conner had a normal life. Normal family. Normal friends. And a normal day. Until her entire world is turned upside-down when tragedy strikes and she is left with the consequences of heartbreak and tragedy.


Living Again

There are consequences for every action. I just never thought mine would be so extreme.

I woke up, trapped inside my own mind. I could only hear the rush of blood in my ears. But the sound soon came through. My eyes were blurry as I tried to open them, but something was keeping them closed, maybe my own body. So I did what was instinct. I panicked.

"She's back!" I heard a male voice say loudly, but in a calm voice.

What did he mean "I was back"? Hadn't I always been here or wherever I was? The sound of sirens was disorienting to me. I was just in the car with Larissa. Had I gone somewhere?

"Valerie, your alright just stay calm. Mellissa, check her pulse." I felt to cold fingers on my wrist. As the feeling was coming back to my body I could feel a sharp pain in my left leg and the back of my head. _Where am I? What's happening to me? _The questions where racing through my mind, but I was getting no answer.

I wanted to speak, but when I opened my mouth all I heard was a scream. It frightened me. I thrashed away from the noise but two strong, but gentle, arms held me down.

A woman spoke. "Valerie, you're going to be fine. Calm down, sweetheart. Ok, let's get her into the OR now." OR? Why was I going to the operating room? The world was slowly becoming clearer. My eyes flew open in hast just to be shut again because of the burning florescent lights. Where's Larissa and her spunky self. She had to be around here somewhere. But where was I? The questions plagued my mind like a wildfire spreading through a dry forest. Too fast. And then… my world went dark once again.

My name is Valerie Conner. I am junior in high school at Creekside High School in Branford, Florida. I was the middle child in a family of three. This was the information that was being told to me, as I sat in my hospital bed. It had been 5 days since the accident. The horrible tragedy that had altered my life forever.

I remember that I was driving my little sister, Larissa, home from her school. She had volleyball practice and my mom had asked me to pick her up because she would be working late tonight. I didn't understand why I had to pick her up when my brother, Luke, who is a senior, could have picked her up. The road wasn't busy in our small town so we were on our way home quicker that I had expected. I got onto the highway that was necessary for to get on to drive to our house, but I was watching the speed limit carefully. I had recently gotten a ticket for a $100 speeding fine.

Larissa was in a bad mood and so we didn't talk much. But when she made a comment on my driving, I lost it. We got in a heated argument, and as the fight progressed so did the speedometer. I was wheeling down the highway at 90 MPH not thinking twice.

I then remember that someone swerved into my lane with a blinker that I wasn't looking for and so I also swerved. Right into the median and over into incoming traffic. I remember the headlights on my face a Larissa screaming and then… nothing.

I wake up after my surgery and find something horrible has happened. Something worse than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams.

My leg had been amputated, so I had only half of a thigh left to my left leg. But even worse than that is this: My baby sister, Larissa, died on impact.

It was stupid. I was stupid. I would have to live with my mistake for the rest of my life, but how could I do that? How can I live with myself?

Disgusted with myself, I turned away from the mirror I had been staring into. I no longer knew the person looking back at me. They were foreign and different and frightening.

My brown hair had dulled and the circles under my eyes had grown darker with the nights of sleeplessness and the days without hunger for anything for my baby sister.

Even though they all I said they didn't, I knew they all secretly blamed me. And I blamed myself. Things would never be the same again. My life was an inescapable void, the years to come seemed lifeless and I no longer knew how to be… normal.

I could be around no one. No one did anything except make me feel even more horrible than I already did. I had been a bright student, a cheerleader for the Bronson Bears, and an overall well liked person I had thought. Larissa was also an extremely bright girl, who had a passion for sports. She had friends by the hundreds and her funeral had been packed into the tiny Methodist church that we had attended.

While I was still getting use to my artificial leg, I took up painting and pottery at home. I had enjoyed the art classes at my school and the psychologist I was seeing for trauma therapy thought it was a wonderful idea. Sometimes I would spend hours out on our back porch painting and sculpting. It colors understood, and the clay molded to my tender hands in a way that made it seem as though it cared.

Physical therapy wasn't all that bad, but school was the worst. All eyes watching me coming down the hall after 2 months of absence. My friend Eli watched out for me at school but not even he could fill the gaping hole in my chest.

Eli and I had grown up together, forever friends and he knew I needed time to heal and recover. But not even I knew how long that could take. I haven't laughed in God knows how long, and I longed to feel rested again, the rock of weariness lifted from my shoulders. But I did not know who could lift it.

School had gone exceptional terrible that day, and instead of going home to an empty house of sorrow and remorse, I had Eli drop me off at the church where we had Larissa's funeral. He asked if I wanted him to come inside, but I shook my head no. I just needed to be alone.

I took a seat gingerly on one of the red velvet pews in the middle of the left section. It was the late afternoon and the sunlight was streaming through the stained-glass windows on the left wall. Happy and bright, their colors illuminated the room. I looked at the cross in the front of the church, polished wood glimmering. A sign of victory, not of defeat. A symbol of living, not of death. Bittersweet.

I lost it. I could no longer keep my anger concealed inside myself. I was not some freak show to be stared at in school. I was a human being, an angry, depressed, distraught human being, and I was done pretending any different. I was angry at my family for refusing to talk to me and refusing to love me again. I was angry at God for taking Larissa and not myself. "She was young and deserved to live. It was my mistake, God! Why take her?" I stood up and shouted to words to the sky, before collapsing back into my pews in anguish.

I cried and cried, and the tears never seemed to stop. I did not know how much time had passed, nor did I care. I just wanted to lie down and die. Who was I living for anymore?

All at once I felt a pang in my chest, and I heard the voice that I had been longing to hear for 4 long months. "Valerie, get up. I do not want you to be sad, my sister. I want you to celebrate the life I did live, and I have lived a good life. You were in no way responsible, I wanted you to know that. You were the best sister anyone could ever ask for, but Val I'm so happy here. And I want you and mom and dad and Luke to be as happy as I am. So no more tears, no more pain. Please heal and teach others about the grace of the God I am with. Oh Val, it's so wonderful, but I need you to go heal our family and our community. I need you to remember me for when I lived and not when I died."

"Larissa, where are you? I can't see you!"

"I know Val, I can't be seen. But you can feel me, for I am with your always. Watching every second of your day. Please, forgive God. Come back to Him. He misses you."

"I will Lissa, I promise."

"That's good, I'm so happy. I love you Valerie."

"You can't leave me! I need you!"

"I will never leave you, but you must keep faith that I am always here."

"I love you, Larissa. Hope to see you soon." I felt as if my heart as on fire, burning inside me, swallowing me whole.

"Hopefully not too soon." The same teasing tone I loved and then silence. I cried once more alone in the darkening church. No more tears, no more pain.

I suddenly felt like I needed to run. To tell the world or at least my family of what had just happened, but I didn't. I couldn't run yet, as hard as I tried. To I walked home, a short distance. I came inside to find my mother cooking dinner and my father reading some papers in the family room. I saw Luke tossing the ball to our Lab, Mickey in the back yard. I called him inside and he came imminently, hearing both the urgency and excitement in my voice.

They all looked at my strangely but I didn't care. "God wants us back. He misses all. We were so strong and faithful and he misses us. And I miss him. I'm through with crying and being sad. I don't think that Larissa," I paused and cleared my throat, beginning again "Would want us to be sad. I will always miss her but I'm going back. I can't live any longer in this state of immobility. I'm living again."

When I looked around the room, everyone had tears in their eyes, including myself. I could just feel Larissa and God smile down on me, my first task complete. I had broken through to my family.

I looked up, smiled for the first time in almost 5 months and said "thank you" just loud enough for my own ears to hear. And yet I know the heavenly onlookers could understand each word.


End file.
